And that’s why last Monday was a miracle.
Last Monday, President Barack Obama was sworn in for a second term. For some, this was a hoped-for event. Others were not so pleased. Most of us, however, might be able to understand and agree that, regardless of our political opinions, there is a miracle here.
The miracle lies in a picture that one mother posted to CNN in response for their requests for photographs of viewers watching the inauguration.
The picture was not of an adult all bundled up on the mall surrounded by thousands of enthusiastic, cheering supporters.
It was a picture of a little 5-year-old boy in a t-shirt in front of a television. He was watching the official, constitutionally-mandated swearing in on the day before the big outdoor ceremony—when President Obama took the oath of office indoors in a semi-private ceremony. As the President raised his right hand, so did the little boy, and the mother’s camera caught that moment.
She asked him why he had his hand up, and he said, “Because the President looks like me!”
It reminds me of an episode of The West Wing in which Jimmy Smits as Matt Santos, the first Latino candidate for President, counters Josh’s warning not to mortgage his house for campaign funds with a story. He tells him that when he’d first gotten out of the Marines, he had applied for a Pentagon job but was having trouble with the background check. The FBI agents couldn’t find anybody in his old neighborhood who knew him. He went back to Texas, and a bunch of the neighbor kids came running up to him.
“Tio Matt, Tio Matt! The Feds. They were here lookin’ for you. We told ’em we never heard of you.”
He tells Josh, with great determination, “I am running for President in that Texas primary, and those kids are gonna see me do that.”
Life often imitates art.
Elected once, it could have been a fluke, a reaction to what is widely perceived as the abysmal Presidency of George W. Bush.
Elected twice? Those kids have seen him do that.
And that may be the biggest and best legacy of any modern President.
